Life is for everyone a strange encounter. A kid conceives life with an altogether different perspective than an adult human being. For him life is a fountain that sprinkles the essence of vitality illuminated with the bands of the spectra, thereby creating a rainbow-like luminescence that enlightens the hearts of those who stand underneath the sweet spray. For you or me, teens grappling with arcane mysteries o survive, life is a fight, a battle where only the fittest survives. For and adult person in the mid 50’s, life is a sojourn, a temporary stay in the halcyon valley of dreams, where the idyllic landscape quenches the natural thirst of love in you. And according to my preliminary presumption, you must be thinking that this is another philosophical essay about the blessings and adversities of life. Let us step ahead, leaving behind these incomprehensible views and peep, through a hole-in-the-door, at the life a student leads.

A student is a most wonderful creation of God. He is a seeker of knowledge, the flambeau of morality and the soul-enlightener. He is the teacher’s pupil, the mentor’s pet and to further extend the truth, a teacher’s joy and his raison d’être. And to give vent to the lava of exaggeration welling up inside me, I declare that a teacher is not a teacher unless he teaches a student how to saunter forth in life.

Let me recount unto you a tale, an incident that bears infinitesimal value in my life. Let me recount unto you in full detail the test which appears to me as the most idiotic and the most important test in my life.

Superciliously he scrutinized me, his expression acrimonious, his visage the picture of spite, a sneer of cold command embellishing his physiognomy. As he peered sternly at me from behind his half-moon spectacles, I swallowed the lump rising in my throat. I gritted my teeth (no, unlike Mad Uncle Jack in Ardagh’s Dreadful Acts, I don’t carry a pre-gritted pair with me) in disgust, his crooked nose resembled Snape’s in Harry Potter.

“Can you define Aufbau’s principle?” asked my interrogator (yes he was strangling me mentally like an interrogator). I gazed beyond him, collected my wits about me, rummaged through the corner drawers of my mind for and agreeable answer, and finding none, I returned, in mind if not in body, to the cell-like lab in which I was bound to remain. “No.” said I, feeling as all do in such a situation, foolish. “Hmm.” he said, allowing the spite to become more obvious. “Then can you explain what amphoteric oxides are?” I thought as I had done before, then I replied the pitch of my voice low, my head bowed down, “No sir.” Displaying his contempt, he said in a harsh tone, “Then Mister, can you explain how you got a A+ grade in Chemistry?”

Oh bother, I thought. He had been trying to bring me down to this. “Well sir, considering my exceptional performance in the examination, the examiner decided to grant me a A+ grade. Is there anything wrong with that?” I replied, my honey-tongued trait playing its charm. He smiled, a dangerous smile, one you can expect only from a snake and said, “And why the examiner chose to award such an imbecile?”

“Well, if you consider the grading system, anyone whose intellect supersedes the commoner is awarded with a A+ grade.”

“That is why I was wondering why he chose to grant it to you.”

I am eloquent speaker, but you can’t expect me to be nice all the time. “Since you consider my intellect impugnable, I think I have no further reason to linger about being thought of as a fool.”

“Go then, as you please.”

I went out. The next day as I crossed the exam hall, I paused for a sec and glanced at the notice board. The result page was dangling, supported by a common pin. And there was engraved in glimmering colors, a A+ grade in front of my name. I smiled, hoisted my satchel on my back and frisking merrily, and went home, thinking all the while: Confidence sure is a nice call……